Sunday, July 31, 2011

The date was August 16, 1987. It had been a long time in coming, with groundbreaking more than a year before. And there were weeks of tours and previews. But on that date in August, the Dolphins took the field in their new home for the first time.

It was a preseason game, and a loss to the Chicago Bears 10-3. But, now that the Dolphins had settled into a first-class stadium that was built with private funds, they finally had a place to call home.

It was a remarkable stadium, the likes of which I had never seen. In fact, I distinctly recall walking along and saying it was "cool as sh!t."

And as we enter into August of 2011, we here at Dave's celebrate its 25th anniversary. (yes, the math is correct, they played in 1987, meaning that this is their 25th year in JRS).

And it will always be Joe Robbie Stadium to me. The guy hocked everything he had - team included - to get the stadium built, and he should still be honored for that accomplishment with his name on it.

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comments

Absolutely!!! It's really sad to me that the stadium has gone though its various corporate names since Robbie's death. Did Blockbuster scrimp everything they had to put this team together, and then build the stadium? I would love to see it revert to its old name, even if it's called the Doritos Joe Robbie Stadium.

It's the 25th season, not anniversary. The 2nd season is the first anniversary, 3rd season the second anniversary, and so on,so the 25th anniversary is 25 years after the first game, which will be August 2012 (1987 + 25). just semantics, but that's the definition of "anniversary".